Brave Witches

Episode 12

The finale of Brave Witches brings the effort to destroy Neuroi nest Grigori to culmination, but doing so in a fairly predictable fashion is both the episode's strength and weakness.

It's a strength in the sense that those predictable elements help drive the popularity of the franchise. Are you watching because of the personalities of the moe girls? Or the exciting, thoroughly-animated fight scenes? The historical allusions? The shonen action-like spirit of the Witches? Or perhaps you're in it for the fanservice? Except for the latter, this last episode gives you what you want. (Remarkably, the series has somehow finished without coming even remotely close to achieving the level of fanservice seen in Strike Witches.)

It's a weakness because the near-complete predictability of the scenario gives a ho-hum feel to the execution. What's on screen certainly looks like it should be exciting, but the battle never really captures the verve or thrill factor of even some battles seen earlier in the season. A pedestrian effort by the musical score, which doesn't charge up with the military themes commonly used in Strike Witches, also carries some of the blame for this. Poor timing of the combat scenario also hurts the effort; at one point, the Witches are calmly hanging around in the air discussing their next move, in a position where it would be illogical that they aren't under intense Neuroi beam barrages. While this is a commonplace problem for anime, the suspension of disbelief required here is more intense than normal.

The way it plays out is about 90% like I predicted last episode: the rest of the Witches protect Takami while she drains herself using her Absolute Eye to locate the core, but Grigori still manages the foil the plan and stop the remaining core. Hikari, who somehow manages to find the 502nd by running cross-country (including effortlessly across water for the first time in the series!), becomes their ace in the hole to set up a super-punch by Naoe. The unexpected twist is that Naoe's punch is enhanced by draining the magic from the core remnants of the earlier shells, but it's a relatively minor one. Everyone works together to get Hikari and Naoe in position, and then the pair finish the job. The one other twist is that the finishing blow comes courtesy of Hikari channeling her magic through the small gun she had been carrying as a good luck charm. I didn't see that coming at all, but it was a neat touch. As expected, Hikari stays with the 502nd at the end, and the visuals and animation quality remain quite high.

The final episode succeeds admirably in bringing Hikari's story to a satisfying stopping point, where she has finally achieved everything she set out to do in the first two episodes. Overall, the series represents the franchise well, with its strong technical merits pushing it to above-average levels for an action anime.

Rating: B

Brave Witches is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.